What’s a moment when a stranger completely restored your faith in people?
I’d taken my two teenage kids out for a meal. While we were waiting for our meal to be prepared we got talking with an older couple on the next table.
To be fair, my children are as frustrating as any others at home. But I’m proud of how polite they are outside. So, they got talking to this couple very politely, especially noting the ice cream sundaes that the couple were enjoying!
The couple paid and left while we were eating.
When we had finished, the children both commented that they were full and ready to leave. I went to the counter to pay and the waitress said, “Oh. The gentleman on the next table was so impressed with your children that he paid for ice cream sundaes for them.”
The children ate and enjoyed the ice cream.
And I learned that there are still good people out there.
If your future self could send you one sentence, what do you hope it would say?
I would hope that I could look back on my life and say, “You made a difference.”
Many people spend their lives trying to obtain some sort of wealth and so-called success. But what is wealth? What is success?
E told me that her sister, S, was visiting. S, who had no grandchildren, looked around at E’s photos of her grandchildren and said, “I may have money. But your wealth is in these photos.”
Real wealth and real success are in the difference we make in the lives of others.
What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective?
We spend all our time trying to control every aspect of our lives. But the reality is that we have very little real control.
A lot of our lives are controlled by others, or by our circumstances. Employees are controlled by their managers, managers by their directors, directors by the business owners, business owners by the market demand. Children are controlled by the needs of their children, and children by the needs of their parents.
And even when we have free time, our freedom is controlled by the circumstances around us.
Take yesterday, as an example. My plan was to work around the house. Then my son called to tell me that he was available to help me with a different task. So, I drove to his house to collect him.
Leaving his home, we were greeted by a number of neighbours asking if it was my car. Yes, it was. Because a bus has just hit it, and the driver took his bus and left the scene before exchanging insurance details.
And that meant that after caring for the heavy lifting with which my son had come to help, and taking him home, I spent the day making reports to the police and insurance company. And now I’ll have to go through the trials of getting the car repaired. And because the bus driver is unknown, I’ll have to pay the excess on my insurance.
What have I learned? That we’re not as “in control” as we’d like to think we are.
How does it change my perspective? It’s a car. No one died. No one even got injured. It’s just a car.
Was I able to do what I wanted to, yesterday? No. I’ll have to do that today. But there’s no point worrying about it. As the saying goes, there’s no good crying over spilt milk. It’s gone. Like the time I’d set aside yesterday, it’s gone. No point worrying about it. I’ll never get that time back. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
So why worry? Why get angry? Will it help get my car fixed? No. Will it make me feel better? No. Will it get the bus driver punished? No. All it will achieve is cause me stress, and shorten my life. So why worry? Why get angry?
Instead, channel that energy into positive acts that get things done.
The positive side of yesterday was that I had less time available, so I carried out a different, shorter task. And strangely, that made a bigger difference than everything I’d planned but couldn’t do!
Greenacre 9 